Books Recommended by Nassim Taleb
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Models.Behaving.Badly.
Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disaster, on Wall Street and in Life
Emanuel Derman
Source: "Convincingly establishes the difference between model and theory and shows why attempts to model financial markets can never be genuinely scientific." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
Source: "A landmark book in social thought, in the same league as The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud." - Nassim Taleb
Zero to One
Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Peter Thiel
Source: "When a risk taker writes a book, read it. In the case of [this author], read it twice. Or, to be safe, three times. This is a classic." - Nassim Taleb
The Invisible Gorilla
And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us
Christopher F. Chabris
Source: "The illusion of attention is one of the most important, surprising, and least known flaws in human thinking. This lucid book examines it in detail." - Nassim Taleb
2 recommenders
Probability Theory
S. R. S. Varadhan
Source: "Gives a complete overview of the basis of probability theory with some grounding in measure theory, and presents the main proofs." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Free The Animal
How to Lose Weight and Fat on the Paleo Diet
Richard Nikoley
Source: "A charming primer on the paleo idea, with an illustration through the authors own life. I read it in one sitting." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Information
The New Language of Science
Hans Christian von Baeyer
Source: "If you want an introduction to information theory, and, in a way, probability theory from the real front door, this is it." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Blueprint
The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society
Nicholas A. Christakis
Source: "Excited to get [this book] as I am trying to go deeper into the notion of fractal (multiscale) localism & see what's wrong w/my thesis" - Nassim Taleb
3 recommenders
The Mind Doesn't Work That Way
The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology
Jerry A. Fodor
Source: "Horribly written (that is Fodor's charm after all) but his argumentation is so ferocious that he ends up loud & clear." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Formula
The Universal Laws of Success
Albert-László Barabási
Source: "[Approaches] the problem of randomness and success using the state of the art scientific arsenal we have." - Nassim Taleb
2 recommenders
No Bull
My Life In and Out of Markets
Michael Steinhardt
Source: "The man is one of the greatest traders in history. There are a few jewels in there." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Sunday Philosophy Club
Isabel Dalhousie, Book 1
Alexander McCall Smith
Source: "I don't want to spoil the story but I felt that I was reading a detective story until I realized what it was..." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Wisdom Paradox
How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older
Elkhonon Goldberg
Source: "I am now spoiled; I need more essays by opinionated, original,and intellectual, contemporary scientists." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Bull!
A History of the Boom and Bust, 1982-2004
Maggie Mahar
Source: "[The author] had the courage to take a look at what was behind all of this religious belief in markets." - Nassim Taleb
2 recommenders
The Status Syndrome
How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity
Michael Marmot
Source: "Well written, humorous at times, and rigorous --it reads like a well-translated scientific paper." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...
Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes
Thomas Cathcart
Source: "Like a brief drink in an airplane lounge with someone funny, smart, witty, but not too funny." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Blank Slate
The Modern Denial of Human Nature
Steven Pinker
Source: "A great exposition of modern scientific thinking and understanding of the nature of man." - Nassim Taleb
3 recommenders
Financial Derivatives
Pricing, Applications, and Mathematics
Jamil Baz
Source: "A condensed, but extremely deep , and complete exposition of the subject of theoretical finance." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Kelly Capital Growth Investment Criterion
Leonard C. MacLean
Source: "Finally, a compendium of the most rigorous research (gamblers ruin based) on risky decisions." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Rational Decisions
Ken Binmore
Source: "Presents a comprehensive set of the principles and axioms behind neo-classical economics." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Elements of Statistical Learning
Data Mining, Inference, and Prediction
Trevor Hastie
Source: "Very comprehensive, sufficiently technical to get most of the plumbing behind machine learning." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Blank Swan
The End of Probability
Elie Ayache
Source: "I am relieved to finally find a book that deals with Black Swan Events in a new way." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Perilous Interventions
The Security Council and the Politics of Chaos
Hardeep Singh Puri
Source: "Should be mandatory reading to every student and practitioner of foreign affairs." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Good Calories, Bad Calories
Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health
Gary Taubes
Source: "Read it twice, once for the diet, once a a rich document in the history of science." - Nassim Taleb
4 recommenders
Order without Design
How Markets Shape Cities
Alain Bertaud
Source: "It is a pleasure to read something by a person who knows his subject in so much depth." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Alchemy
The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
Rory Sutherland
Source: "Wonderfully applicable to about everything in life. Furthermore, it is funny as hell." - Nassim Taleb
4 recommenders
Seeking Wisdom
From Darwin to Munger
Peter Bevelin
Source: "A wonderful book on wisdom and decision-making written by a wise decision-maker." - Nassim Taleb
Adapt
Why Success Always Starts with Failure
Tim Harford
Source: "A highly readable, even entertaining, argument against top-down design." - Nassim Taleb
2 recommenders
Market Wizards
Interviews with Top Traders
Jack D. Schwager
Source: "Twenty years from now, [this book] will still be fresh. There is no other like it." - Nassim Taleb
3 recommenders
Kant and the Platypus
Essays on Language and Cognition
Umberto Eco
Source: "I was taken aback by the combination of depth and the vividness of the style." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Birth of a Theorem
Cédric Villani
Source: "[The author] is playful in real life, his research is playful, and [this book] is playful." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Confessions of a Philosopher
A Personal Journey Through Western Philosophy from Plato to Popper
Bryan Magee
Source: "[The author] was close enough to Popper to present us with his ideas first-hand." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
A Few Lessons from Sherlock Holmes
Peter Bevelin
Source: "It makes you both wiser and eager to reread Sherlock Holmes." - Nassim Taleb
2 recommenders
Mathematics
Its Content, Methods and Meaning
A. D. Aleksandrov
Source: "Mathematicians should be using this book as a model for their own composition." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Making of a Philosopher
My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy
Colin McGinn
Source: "A great book but I felt something cold inside of me while reading it." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Science of Conjecture
Evidence and Probability before Pascal
James Franklin
Source: "Stands above, way above other books on the history and philosophy of probability." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Deep Learning
Ian Goodfellow
Source: "Very clear exposition, does the math without getting lost in the details." - Nassim Taleb
4 recommenders
The Dao of Capital
Austrian Investing in a Distorted World
Mark Spitznagel
Source: "At last, a real book by a real risk-taking practitioner." - Nassim Taleb
I Think, Therefore I Laugh
John Allen Paulos
Source: "Great refresher in Analytical Philosophy --maybe the best." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Misbehavior of Markets
A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence
Benoit Mandelbrot
Source: "The deepest and most realistic finance book ever published." - Nassim Taleb
2 recommenders
Social Cognition
Making Sense of People
Ziva Kunda
Source: "It is limpid, precise, illustrative, showing a wonderful clarity of mind." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas
Source: "This treasure will prevent you from enjoying other novels." - Nassim Taleb
The French Revolution and What Went Wrong
Clarke Stephen
Source: "So much fun to read. The author, visibly writes with an attitude." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Modern Aramaic-English/English-Modern Aramaic Dictionary & Phrasebook
Assyrian/Syriac
Nicholas Awde
Source: "Most excellent, except for very few and small mistakes." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Statistical Mechanics of Financial Markets
Johannes Voit
Source: "Very useful bridge between physics methodologies and finance." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Hopping over the Rabbit Hole
How Entrepreneurs Turn Failure into Success
Anthony Scaramucci
Source: "So gripping you can read it standing up. A must read." - Nassim Taleb
Invariances
The Structure of the Objective World
Robert Nozick
Source: "Like a manual for a new regimen in philosophy." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Ficciones
Jorge Luis Borges
Source: "How literature and philosophy can be saved by parables." - Nassim Taleb
2 recommenders
Scale
The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies
Geoffrey West
Source: "Will expand your thinking from three dimensions to four." - Nassim Taleb
Idea Makers
Personal Perspectives on the Lives & Ideas of Some Notable People
Stephen Wolfram
Source: "Excellent! Only read on mathematicians by insiders." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
A Guide to Econometrics
Peter Kennedy
Source: "The best intuition builder in both statitics and econometrics." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Mean Genes
From Sex To Money To Food
Terry Burnham
Source: "So readable as to perhaps set a standard." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Bull by the Horns
Fighting to Save Main Street from Wall Street and Wall Street from Itself
Sheila Bair
Source: "The account of a person who says it the way it was." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
1 recommender
1 recommender
How Nature Works
The Science of Self-organized Criticality
Per Bak
Source: "Intuitive & makes you think of universal laws." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Explaining Social Behavior
More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences
Jon Elster
Source: "Simply the best: read it at least twice." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Consciousness
An Introduction
Susan Blackmore
Source: "Comprehensive, clear, well written." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Who We Are and How We Got Here
Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
David Reich
Source: "Finally, science enters historical fields." - Nassim Taleb
The Discovery of France
A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War
Graham Robb
Source: "An answer to so many questions." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Hour Between Dog and Wolf
How Risk Taking Transforms Us, Body and Mind
John Coates
Source: "Excellent exposition of overcompensation." - Nassim Taleb
2 recommenders
Probability, Random Variables and Stochastic Processes
Athanasios Papoulis
Source: "I always always recommend [this book]." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
A History of the Mind
Evolution and the Birth of Consciousness
Nicholas Humphrey
Source: "Clarity, so rare, so prized..." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Dream of Reason
A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance
Anthony Gottlieb
Source: "Deep, readable & investigative." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Happy Accidents
Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century
Morton Meyers MD
Source: "Please Please READ This Book! Read it TWICE!" - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition
Norman Russell
Source: "The most complete overview of theosis." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
The Secret of Fatima
A Father Kevin Thrall Thriller
Peter J. Tanous
Source: "James Bond as a Catholic Priest." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Elements of Information Theory
Thomas M. Cover
Source: "The BEST book [on information theory]." - Nassim Taleb
2 recommenders
The Bitcoin Standard
The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking
Saifedean Ammous
Source: "Bitcoin is an excellent idea." - Nassim Taleb
3 recommenders
The Practice of Natural Movement
Reclaim Power, Health, and Freedom
Erwan Le Corre
Source: "Excited to find in my mailbox [this book]." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Statistical Models
Theory and Practice
David Freedman
Source: "The best statistics book I've seen." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
2 recommenders
1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die
A Food Lover's Life List
Mimi Sheraton
Source: "This is THE reference book." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
1 recommender
The Longevity Solution
Rediscovering Centuries-Old Secrets to a Healthy, Long Life
Dr. James DiNicolantonio
Source: "Incredibly well made book." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Modelling Extremal Events
For Insurance and Finance
Paul Embrechts
Source: "The bible for the field." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
Body by Science
A Research Based Program to Get the Results You Want in 12 Minutes a Week
John R. Little
Source: "I owe a lot to this book." - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
1 recommender
The Complete Guide to Fasting
Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting
Dr. Jason Fung
Source: "An excellent book!" - Nassim Taleb
1 recommender
1 recommender
100 books
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